Sunday, September 14, 2008

I won't let myself check last Sunday's crossword answers until this Sunday's crossword is complete. This is not a superstition - luck has nothing to do with it - and it's not a reward - completing the crossword is its own reward - but it's an ingrained habit in the same class as brushing my teeth before bed.

I make steel-cut oatmeal every weekend, but I won't make it on a weekday morning, even if I have time. Monday to Friday, it's Multigrain Life cereal for me.

I have a sample of EasyGlide dental floss that I keep in my cosmetic bag for when I go on vacation. The rest of the time, I use the cheaper mint-flavoured Johnson & Johnson. Frugality is a possible motive for this one, but considering my lax habits in all my other spending, there's still a certain senselessness to this lone act of penny-pinching.

When I'm craving an apple, I often decide not to eat one on the grounds that I should save healthy food like that for the children.

When I buy a home-decorating magazine, I make myself read all the articles, even the ones I'm not interested in. (However, I no longer force myself to finish reading books I'm not enjoying, abandoning them as soon as something better comes along. Recent books to receive this treatment are The Birth House, Effigy, and Eat, Pray, Love, any of which I may return to if my stash of more compelling reads dwindles sufficiently.) (Furthermore, I don't apply this "get your money's worth" reasoning to food: if I am full, or I'm not enjoying the meal I ordered in a restaurant, I never force myself to keep eating.)

I never throw out a set of pyjamas. I still own (and occasionally wear) flannel nightgowns that date back to the 1980s.

What about you? What senseless forms of self-discipline do you practise?

Hahahaa! I thought I was the only one who was selfless enough to pass up the healthy food in order to preserve it for my kid. Who knew??!! :)

I buy DIET Nestea Iced Tea. I eat everything else that is totally fatty and bad for me, but I insist that I'm doing my body a favour by consuming only diet iced tea. Who do I think I'm kidding, really?

Sense-less acts of self discipline or rigidity with a good healthy dose of inflexibility??? What does that make now? Four ASD traits? lolPS. I can't spell so I erased it and tried again. It was too embarrassing.

When a recipe calls for minced garlic I almost never use my garlic press. I chop it by hand because cleaning the garlic press is too time-consuming. So maybe that isn't self-discipline but more time-saving. But it feels like self-discipline because I always think "I COULD use the garlic press. It would be easier than trying to chop this garlic into teeny little pieces." Ok, I'm just sounding like a crazy person here.

I must sit in my office at my computer until the clock strikes to end my shift even though no one would care if I left 15 minutes early once my work was done and even though all I am doing is reading blogs and tweets.

We had one tomato plant this year and I didn't eat any of them because Iknew my daughter would like them. Also, I like to do things within a certain amount of time. Like the timing between shutting the bathroom door and turning on/off the light has to be just so.

I also am unworthy of good, fresh fruit. It kills me when a little worthy one then takes my offering, slimes it with something else on his plate, drools on it, or even chews it a bit before SPITTING IT OUT, rendering it completely unsalvageable. (One time this summer, though, I did eat one ripe, juicy, delicious peach that the kids would have loved. Shame on me.)

I couldn't think of anything so I asked Sugar D and he said "always being on time" and "always turning off the lights" neither of which seem senseless to me. I know I have some I just can't think of them.

Like nomotherearth, I must make my bed before I get into it, although a lot of that is comfort--I just don't like a messy bed. If Donn has already gone to bed on a rare day that I haven't made it, I will make him get up so that I can make the bed properly.

I also eat my food in a particular way...saving the middles and best bites for last, and I do dishes before I go to bed even if I haven't done them all day. I don't think this is discipline though, more like quirkiness and general uptightness.

I had to read through all the comments to try and come up with something self-discipline related that I might maybe possibly do. Sadly, I've got nothing. I think self-discipline is maybe something I need to work on.

Does compulsively checking to see if the oven and dryer are turned off after everyone is in bed even though I KNOW that they are off, but I can't control myself anyway count? I guess that's more along the lines of "crazy" more than "self-disciplined",right?

If I am going to indulge in potato chips, they must be eaten with a vegetable.

I DO force myself to finish books, even if it has been 3 years since I picked up that nasty, dusty tome. Your post has given me hope that I could overcome this self-discipline.

Hmmm...what else? I'm not terribly self-disciplined when it comes to dessert. I will eat it before the meal if I want, and I will have 3 cookies after I've made a batch instead of one. Bad Guy, but it sure makes life enjoyable!

Minnesotamom - There are people who would bake a batch of cookies and then eat only one? That's just wrong. They're never going to be as good again as when they're fresh out of the oven, so it's really a kind of moral OBLIGATION to eat as many as possible. (Normally, like Kittenpie, I eat only three cookies, but if they're fresh out of the oven I'll eat four.)

For the most part I am not a particularly self-disciplined person. However, I do eat the exact same semi-healthy low-cal breakfast each morning with the intention of it starting a diet which rarely makes it past morning snack. But at least there is the hope that comes with a new day.

Trudy - Seriously. Bub has exactly the same belief. He will even put off his first-thing-in-the-morning pee as long as possible - until well after breakfast some mornings and even then only because I physically put him on the potty.

I can't do the crossword unless the pencil is newly sharpened. I must do the ironing in the order in which the items are piled in the laundry basket. I can't leave a comment unless I have read all the posts above and below it.I hardly ever get the crossword, the ironing OR the reading finished.